I have had root canals that have gone quite painlessly, and the end result was a great relief to me. But my last one? Madre de Dios! This involved a lot of white-knuckle gripping of the arms of the chair, where the dentist keeps trying to tell me to relax, relax, and I just want her to hurry up! She notices my death-grip and says relax -- again! -- and I squeak through the various tools, "I am. German relaxation.", which gets me a lot of laughter from everyone! But this just takes more time....

There is a church Sacrament that will help your pain/healing/tolerance thereof. Go get thee anointed. I was up and walking 6 hours after a C-section. All pain controlled by OTC medicine [though I still have a stash of Vicadin if the grid goes down]. It could only be the anointing. Trust me.

Ruth Anne, what part of "I only have one cavity to date" did you not understand?!?!

Cancel my retainer fee, please. I'm not having a lawyer like you handling my cases!

There is a church Sacrament that will help your pain/healing/tolerance thereof. Go get thee anointed. I was up and walking 6 hours after a C-section. All pain controlled by OTC medicine [though I still have a stash of Vicadin if the grid goes down]. It could only be the anointing. Trust me.

Anointing, eh? Well, I'll give it a go because my toof is KILLING me!

The problem is, as everyone knows, you can't do dental work when the tooth is infected. So I am on meds including a pain-killer, which scares the bejesus out of me.

With my family history of drunks, coke addicts, and general OCDness, one can never been too careful.